It’s what it says on the packet
After a week when Phil Clarke, the boss of Tesco, promised his customers that, in future, what it says on the packet will be what’s in the packet, when Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, started a probe into his own department and Malcolm Walker, the boss at Iceland, pointed the blame at local authorities for being obsessed with price for school and hospital meals, what do we as supermarket customers have a right to expect?
After a lifelong career in the retail industry, I am ashamed that retailers have allowed this situation to develop. I applaud Phil Clarke, as the leader of the biggest retailer in the land, for standing up and taking responsibility for Tesco’s part in this terrible scandal. He has committed to checking out the supply chain with care and attention, developing a web-site so that we can see for ourselves which farms and factories produce our food and to offering a substitute at no extra cost should they have to withdraw a product in the future.
All of this is good stuff but I am a great believer that you cannot know where you are today, or where to go in the future, without learning lessons from the past. There was an explosion of own label fresh, frozen and processed foods in the early 1980s when supermarkets developed central distribution networks that were multi-temperature but innovative retailers like Ian MacLauren of Tesco’s knew that branding the product meant that retailers had to take responsibility for the ingredients that were used.
To this end he built a quality control department that had real power and no product was listed under the Tesco brand without their sign off. The department was independent of the buying teams and their sole responsibility was to ensure that the product specification was always met. This strategy was part of an overall plan that would eventually set Tesco apart from the rest, enable them to overtake Sainsbury before MacLauren retired in the mid 90s and provide a platform for Terry Leahy to take Tesco international.
So what went wrong, so terribly wrong, that the trust with customers, that all retailers hold dear, is now threatened by this issue that is sweeping across Europe? Commentators, pundits, campaigners and academics are all analysing this to try and find a reason or a scapegoat to blame. Is it consumers themselves for demanding cheap food in these tough times? Is it the government and regulators for not having strict enough testing regimes? Is it, in fact, local authorities for sacrificing quality for price when sourcing food for our hospitals and schools as Malcolm Walker argues?
I started life as a butcher’s boy and can tell you that responsibility lies full square with the retailers. Great leaders recognise that, when something goes wrong, they must take control, accept responsibility and put in place action plans that put things right. They do not attempt to point the finger in another direction and pretend it is not their fault.
Therefore, Messrs P Clarke (Tesco), A Clarke (Asda), J King (Sainsbury), D Phillips (Morrisons) and M Price (Waitrose), as the distributers of over 75% of the nation’s food, please take responsibility. Restore consumers’ confidence by ensuring that quality control teams are independent of buying teams, have total responsibility for product specifications and the authority to reject products accordingly. Ensure that part of their remit will include DNA testing of batch and continuous line produced products with records kept accordingly.
Our retail industry is one to be proud of and this issue presents an opportunity for us to show the nation and Europe that we can take responsibility and get things back on track quickly.
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